In this interview with Darren Reinke from Group Sixty, we discuss the process of combining business advisory with management coaching to improve the effectiveness of new leaders. With so many different methods and frameworks available for coaching it can be hard knowing which will be best for a leader and business. There are places like AuxinOKR which offer OKR training for those who need to track the progress of different goals. However, this might not work for some businesses and they may require different coaching. As an alternative you could also invest in some software like profit.co which helps you to create and share business objectives with your colleagues, as well as track individual and group progress towards them. It’s best to also get some face to face training though for a multi dimensional learning experience that will stay with you. Darren Reinke who is a Strategy Consultant and ICF Certified Executive Coach, runs Group Sixty, a growth acceleration company focused on helping clients grow and drive the creation of predictable, repeatable revenue. A lot of this is about alignment, and we are going to talk a bit about that= today. It is also about making sure you have the right people on the right seats on the bus, as Jim Collins describes in his book, Built to Last. Darren is a seasoned consultant and executive coach with over 20 years of experience in consulting, executive coaching, marketing, business development, corporate strategy, and project management. He has a specific expertise is in driving growth for clients by zeroing in on the highest return opportunities, collaborating with clients to build plans to execute on key business objectives, and driving business outcomes through coaching and project management. Speaking of project management, if you don’t have the skills to do this on your own, it is important to realise that with the use of project software, you’ll be able to improve workflow and communication amongst the team. There are many different options to choose from when it comes to project software, but most recently Microsoft has brought out their aptly named ‘Microsft Project’ which enables you to digitize your project management. When it comes to learning to use MS Project, there are plenty of courses available that help break it down for you,
New leaders need to deal with a significant amount of uncertainty and ambiguity, especially in a business that is experiencing rapid growth and change. Leaders, from time to time, will also need to deal with adversity. Darren focuses on “strength based” training in working with coaching clients. Patrick: This is Patrick Henry, the CEO of QuestFusion, with the Real Deal…What Matters. I’m here today with Darren Reinke. He is a Strategy Consultant and ICF Certified Coach. That’s the International Coach Federation. He has not only experience but also certification in this area. Darren runs Group Sixty, a growth acceleration company focused on helping clients grow and drive the creation of predictable and repeatable revenues, which we all want to do. A lot of this is about alignment. We’re going to talk a bit about that today. It’s also about making sure you have the right people and the right seats on the bus, as Jim Collins talks about in his seminal book, Built to Last. Darren does a lot of things related to helping people get to the next level and be productive at that next level. Darren is a seasoned consultant and executive coach with over 20 years of experience in consulting, executive coaching, marketing, business development, corporate strategy and project management. He has significant experience in driving growth for clients by zeroing in on the highest return opportunities, collaborating with clients to build plans to execute on key business objectives, and driving business outcomes through coaching and project management. Welcome, Darren. Darren: I’m glad to be here. Patrick: Tell our audience more about your background and what you do in your role as a coach and advisory. Darren: I’m a native Californian. I’ve been in San Diego for about 10 years. I grew up in the Bay Area. I went to undergrad and business school at Berkeley. I’ve been down here since 2009. I started my career at Accenture, then bounced around at a few startups for both myself and others. I worked in some big organizations as well, such as Gap, Neutrogena and ProFlowers. Then I launched Group Sixty in 2010. It’s a growth acceleration company focusing on helping companies both build and execute. There’s a double click on the execution piece of the business strategy. I work with leadership teams and individual leaders to help them develop a set of competencies that align with those business strategies. Patrick: Accenture is the old Andersen Consulting Business where they split the accounting from the consulting. You’ve been with a big-time consulting firm that does a lot of this type of work. Darren: When I started my career, I was an Andersen Consulting employee. I was there during the switchover, which ended up being a brilliant branding move for them out of a tough situation. That’s where I earned my consulting chops and got a chance to work with some of the biggest organizations in the world. I developed strong methodologies that I’ve used going forward in my business. Patrick: You didn’t make the transition directly from big firm consulting to boutique consulting firm. You had some other things in between. You had some entrepreneurial experiences as well as other big companies. Tell us about the evolution, especially when you went to ProFlowers. That was a relatively small company when you joined, correct? Darren: Yes, there were a couple hundred people there at the time. Patrick: You moved from consulting, a big company, a small company and then eventually more of a consulting deal where you’re doing it on your own. Why did you decide to start your own business? Darren: I’ve always thought of myself as someone who wants to build the ship, not just steer the ship. That’s always been a passion of mine. Growing up, my parents are entrepreneurs in a completely different context. They’re veterinarians. My father ran his own business practice and sold to a private equity company several years ago. There was this entrepreneurial thread that was always there. I just didn’t tap into it until recently. Patrick: I was similar. I grew up in big companies and never felt adequately prepared to start my own deal or run a company, for some period of time until I got more management experience under my belt. I understand that. Tell me more about what I’m calling management preparedness. We run into this situation all the time with big and small companies. People are promoted into management positions or into higher levels of management positions based on their hard skills and competency. Maybe they’re the best software developer and the best project manager. They say, “We’re now going to put you in charge of running the whole software development group because you’re the best person for that.” But they lack some of the soft skills. I know you do things related to that. Talk to me about your philosophy with that part of your business. Darren: That’s been a big focus of our business of late. We’ve seen a huge opportunity in the marketplace. As you mentioned, people get promoted. My original context for this was professional services, people who were extremely strong at executing, but now they’re being elevated into a role where they need to empower, guide, inspire and direct. That’s a very different skill set, as you mentioned. It’s much more focused on those softer skill sets. Patrick: Do you work mainly with large companies, startups or mid-market companies? What’s your sweet spot? Darren: We work with a range of organizations. Our sweet spot is more mid-market. They have roughly a couple hundred employees. Patrick: You have one or two tiers of management typically? How does that work out with what’s going on with management these days? Darren: Our focus is on these emerging leaders. Historically, there has been a good investment in terms of those high potentials. In terms of management preparedness, I would say that the high potentials that are identified get the preparedness, but through an investment. I believe there is a big opportunity, and it’s proven to be the case, that a lot of the others who are elevated into these roles where they’re not doing, they’re empowering, guiding and managing. There’s a gap there that’s not being addressed in the market. Patrick: What kind of tools do you use for this? Is it 360-degree feedback? What do you do to help assess and then help coach someone? Darren: Essentially, there are three steps that we go through. The first piece is an awareness piece. We talk about strengths. I’m a big user of a strengths-based philosophy. In sports and life, I never thought of motivating and mentoring before I became aware of a strengths-based philosophy. It was something that I was naturally inclined to do. In sports, it would be folly to assume that everyone has the same set of skill sets or communication competency. The same thing holds true in business as well. We need to adapt the individual strengths of employees, managers and leaders. We start with that awareness piece. What are your individual strengths? We use a variety of assessments, like StrengthsFinder and TotalSDI, which is also a San Diego company here in Carlsbad. The idea is to get a sense for a person’s strengths but also an awareness of the different leadership competencies that need to be developed. It’s strengths plus those leadership competencies. The second piece is around mindset. We take a big focus to get a sense of engendering empathy but also learning how to be vulnerable with organizations and your teams. This isn’t a full “kimono opened all the way” type of vulnerability, but it can be a sense of sharing some of the challenges that you’ve faced in elevating your role. That helps to build that engagement with your employees. The third piece is a practice-based focus on skill sets. We talk about some of the behavioral practices that someone could adopt around becoming a stronger communicator and better collaborator to foster trust within the team. It’s those three different pieces. There is the awareness, the mindset and the practice-based skill sets. Patrick: With awareness, you’re trying to move someone from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence. You’re trying to move them to start practicing some of this. You mentioned two interesting things, the leadership component and the emotional intelligence component. What are some of the things that you focus on in those areas when it comes to strengths-based focus? When I was going up through management in bigger companies, a lot of the focus was, “Let’s improve your weaknesses. Here are your weaknesses, Patrick.” There were a lot of them. Now the conversation is, “Let’s focus on your strengths,” and you hire for your weakness or get other people on the team who are good at things that you’re not good at. That is better. From a sports standpoint, it does translate to business. Are there universal things related to leadership that are important for someone if they’re in one of these roles? Darren: There are universal traits that a leader needs to have. Being a strong communicator is one of the big things. Someone who is truly collaborative, someone who can foster skills around collaboration. Also developing a strong sense of trust is a critical component as well. Having that appropriate balance of candor in a conversation is important, and not ripping someone in front of their peers. You want to do it in a way that’s in service of that person, helping them to develop further. Patrick: Have you found those things to be teachable skills? What is your experience with that in terms of percentages? Darren: Gallop had a study a few years back. In an organization, about 10% of employees are truly fit to be managers and leaders. Clearly, we need to do some development around the rest of it. In terms of the people who can develop, I’m a high positivity guy. I believe that we can move the needle with people across those dimensions. The key is giving them a set of tactical practices that they can do versus assuming that it’s a natural, inherent trait that they have. I also think it’s helpful to ground it in strengths. That’s what I love about a strengths-based approach. It focuses on those things that someone inherently does well. It also gives you a lens to have a conversation. If you’re thinking about communication, what are the different things that you can pull from based on your strengths. Someone could be futuristic or high ideation. You can bring those into a conversation. It gives you that context to coach and develop someone around a specific competency that may be a bit nebulous. Patrick: What about emotional intelligence? Can that be taught? If people are insensitive, will they always be insensitive? Darren: That’s a challenging one. I tend to be extremely self-aware. It is something that can be developed over time. I think how far you can move someone along a continuum is that openness to change. A leading indicator of a successful coaching arrangement is someone who is really open to change. Patrick: At the beginning of an engagement, do you set goals? How do you measure softer skills? Darren: That’s one of the critical functions of the early conversations. It’s about defining that alliance. You work with the person you’re coaching as well as your sponsor to get that triangle relationship. You want to make sure you’re designing towards something that can be measured. It’s a key part of the conversation. Having that candid conversation is important. Some of those fundamental leadership traits are the basics, but then we fill in the gaps based on a specific person’s role and the organizational strategy. That is a fundamental conversation. You want to get a sense from an ROI perspective of what it would mean if we’re successful to be developing along these competencies. If we really do move the needle there, what does that look like from a revenue profitability perspective? We do measure that. It’s usually custom based on a specific engagement. It’s tied to behavioral results. Patrick: Are you dealing with people at the C level, like the CEO, chief marketing officer or chief sales officer? Is it middle management? Darren: It’s a combination of the two. The biggest opportunity that we’ve seen is with those emerging leaders. Somewhere between the early-level and mid-level management, but the idea is to help them accelerate, not just in that role, but also the next one or two promotions that are coming down the road. Patrick: Is the concentration of your practice more on one-on-one coaching or advisory, helping companies with strategy? Darren: It’s a blend of those two things. That’s why we’ve positioned ourselves as a growth acceleration company. Sometimes it’s pure strategic consulting and on the execution piece. Sometimes it’s stand-alone coaching. The most value is unlocked when those two things come together. Patrick: Talk about your entrepreneurial journey. Give me an example of one of your biggest success stories. Darren: The journey has been fun and challenging, as you know, being an entrepreneur multiple times. Starting out in 2010, one of the biggest indicators of success is staying around, still being in business, growing and scaling. I worked with an organization that was changing their go-to-market sales model. I worked with them to make that pivot, selling to different constituents. I helped them develop a strategy for that. Ultimately, I’m now working with other executives to coach them to have those conversations with the different constituents. Patrick: That’s where it comes together. You help build a new process associated with the go-to-market strategy. Then there’s an adaptation process with the team in doing that. Darren: Definitely. That’s a great example of how those two things come together and where that value can be enhanced. The strategy is great but you need the accountability piece and those competencies to be developed in order to be successful with those new strategies. Patrick: What are some of your personal or professional greatest accomplishments as an entrepreneur? Darren: As I mentioned, any time you can successfully launch a business and be around seven years later, and to have grown over that time, is successful. I think that’s an accomplishment for anyone, given the failure rate. I think about it in a positive light around failure and failing forward. There is the huge percentage of companies that don’t survive beyond the one or five-year mark. I think that’s a success in itself. Then there is evolving, listening to the marketplace needs as well as evolving your model over time. Patrick: What are some of the things you’re most proud of personally? Darren: The obvious one is my kids. My boys are everything. I’m proud of raising them. I think it’s about doing the best you can do. I don’t know if there is a scoreboard or a metric about being a great parent. I hope I’m a great parent. I have two young boys. Patrick: How old are they? Darren: They’re five and seven. I’m teaching them to surf. It’s funny, my youngest was teaching me how to teach him to surf. It was pretty impressive for a five-year-old. I’m learning from them as well. Patrick: What are some of your biggest personal or professional challenges where you’ve had some adversity and you’ve had to deal with that? Darren: It’s a bit cliché, but for me, it’s about being present. It’s about being present in any moment or conversation. That ties to focus. As an entrepreneur, there are so many opportunities that you can change. It’s about staying focused. I believe that being present is helpful in terms of maintaining that focus. Patrick: Can you give me an example of where you learned from it and grew? Darren: Starting Group Sixty, there are so many things you can do from a business development perspective and developing service lines. Then there is the work that pays the bills, which is the delivery. My area of expertise is focusing on the highest return activity, whether it’s in a day, week, month or one element of your strategy. If you do that successfully, you will really move the needle in terms of your business. Patrick: How long did it take you from the start of the company to where you really felt like you had things dialed in? You have a broad skill set. You are working with a bunch of different clients. You’re trying to figure out what products sell and what people will pay for. How long did that take before you felt that you had it dialed in? Darren: Several years. Honestly, it’s a constant evolution. It’s the nature of the marketplace, the disruption that’s happening and the use of technology. Any business needs to constantly have an eye towards the future, and how technology and other things can disrupt their business. It took a while but it’s constantly growing and evolving. For me, it was a hard skill set around strategic consulting. When I formalized my coaching practice several years ago, it was taking that strategic competency and layering that coaching approach around it. That’s been helpful in terms of unlocking that value for clients. Patrick: I bring this up for the entrepreneurial audience. We see this over and over again. I’ve seen it in my career. I see it with QuestFusion. I see it with other people that I talk to. Don’t underestimate the importance of being able to grind stuff out. Things always take longer than you think they’re going to take. They always cost a little more than what you think. At the same time, you need to say, “Is there a business model here where I can make money?” In this area, you’ve identified a market need. Now you’ve combined these two sets of capabilities. You have a unique value proposition around that. Now you’re starting to get real traction around it. Are there any key words of wisdom you have for the entrepreneurial audience, based on your experiences over the last seven years? Darren: I try not to use clichés, but it’s important to be authentic to yourself and what you’re passionate about. This is to your point about grinding it out. If you’re in alignment with your authentic self, you’ll be successful over the long haul. If you can find that alignment between what you do well, what you enjoy doing and the need of the marketplace, you can get that triangle. If you can get those three things aligned then you’re set for enduring success. Patrick: I agree 100%. Don’t be a salmon. Don’t swim upstream. Find the direction of the stream that aligns with your passion and your competence, and you can do great things. Not that I haven’t had situations where you have to break through a wall, but if you can get that alignment, it’s even better. I love what you said about focus. I see that often with entrepreneurs and mentees. There are so many shiny objects. There are so many opportunities. Especially with an emerging growth company, you have a finite set of resources to address the opportunity. Identifying the best one and making sure you have that alignment between your goals and your daily activities is important. This has been fantastic. We’re here today with Darren Reinke. He is an executive coach and strategy consultant. He brings those two pieces together for mid-market companies. His sweet spot is companies between 100 and 500 people. He focuses on emerging managers working up through the food chain. In a lot of situations, we see that those folks may have the hard competencies but not some of the soft competencies. I think this is something very valuable for a lot of the companies out there that are in that emerging and rapid growth phase. This is Patrick Henry, CEO of QuestFusion, with The Real Deal…What Matters.